The Hero Instinct
by MaliBiser
Summary: Uchiha Itachi, the latest addition to Akatsuki's numbers, is passing a village with his recently-acquired partner when suddenly the remains of his compassion are put to a test. Oneshot.


_**Disclaimer:**__owns a few people, no one much relevant. Itachi and Kisame, as well as Naruto Universe, belong to Masashi Kishimoto._

_**SPOILERS: **__for all those who didn't finish the Itachi vs. Sasuke ultimate showdown. There _are_ such people, you know. I was one of them a couple of weeks ago. :)_

_Set in the first few weeks of Itachi/Kisame partnership._

_**The Hero Instinct**_

Waves splashed against the shore in monotonous flushes of grey salty water and foam. The seagulls shrieked, cutting through the crimson prospect of the sky. The ruddy sun was slowly descending and would soon dip into the water, to sink in the ocean depths.

Nothing could have differed more from the sunsets of his wooded homeland, but Uchiha Itachi guessed his new partner must have felt at home.

Hoshigaki Kisame didn't make a point of drawing him into conversation, if you excluded that first warning of not leaning much on their partnership, so it was mostly from the Mist rogue's sighs and contented spreading of the gills that Itachi concluded Hoshigaki had sentiments for the seaside.

Thinking of an S-rank criminal having sentiments for anything was disconcerting, especially after Uchiha Itachi did everything in his power to strangle his own. But who could ever claim to have understood the workings of another man's interior?

Especially when one's own would sometimes get so intricate.

Itachi sighed as a sudden gust of salty breeze played with his black tresses. Night was approaching, gathering from the eastern sky in the form of massive dark grey clouds. It seemed a storm was coming up, and would hit the little coastal village in the course of the night. Seeking shelter looked as a sensible alternative to being caught in the tempest in the middle of the cliffs which their mission demanded them to traverse.

Kisame was off to search out an acquaintance who could provide them lodging for the night, so Itachi was left to stand on the road and gaze at the sunset which tinted the sky in the colours of Tsukuyomi. The village was so little it didn't have an inn.

Passengers didn't choose this road, and the Akatsuki's appearances were met with reserve. Conversations dropped and people passed over to the other side of the street. The fact Kisame's skin was _blue_ contributed.

Itachi had no reason to believe the approaching figures would behave in any other way.

He looked at them. Two women and a child.

He recognized them as the same two whom he and his partner had bypassed earlier. The younger one had then looked at him with some interest, but soon picked up her pace as she took in Kisame's 'subtle differences'. The other one had hushed the child closer to her, and nervously glanced at them.

Upon noticing his presence now, the women halted, and then proceeded to walk in a considerably slower pace. They reached a crossroad.

The road split: one path led up to a small house whose roof emerged from the treetops on Itachi's right, and the other was the one in which he stood.

For some reason, the women stopped, and the younger one engaged a conversation with the older woman – every now and then sending furtive glances in his direction, making sure his strangely-coloured company wasn't near. The older woman listened to her with some impatience, having crossed her arms, and from time to time called out for the child, who aimlessly raced around, to stop and keep close.

Itachi had no interest in them, so he looked away and settled his eyes on the crests of the waves again. Soon enough, his partner would return and they would spend the night in some feeble-roofed hut, whose grey wood would crack and crepitate, hit by a storm wind mixed with the salt and the waves. They would disappear before the break of dawn, merging with the cold morning mist, and the villagers would be left with nothing but a bleary source of wonder, a vague memory of curiously-clothed strangers.

The mission would be carried out, as neatly and efficiently as possible, without questions and second thoughts, its success reported to the Leader (not to _Madara_, Itachi thought - he would have to consider that) and a new one would be obtained, leading them to other villages and other unquestioned tasks.

And so until the...

Flapping of the wings broke him out of his musings, and he rapidly stepped aside on a reflex, to avoid collision with a white bird's body, which shrieked at him and barely managed to make a turn just in time. The seagull soared into the sky with an angry squawk. Down below him, a child cried simultaneously and little feet speeded away from the scary bird in terror. Itachi looked at the little boy whose impetuous curiosity angered the bird.

In any other circumstances, Uchiha Itachi would have smiled at the sight, but – as it was – he didn't do anything but continued to gaze at the boy. His mother had cried out for him to return to her side that instant, and the child hurried towards her. Itachi followed him with his eyes, checking the quiet sadness with will-power.

Two other birds pitched themselves between the boy and his mother, who was already too much engaged in her conversation to realize the seagulls scared her son to death. Little feet insecurely deviated from the straight path and the boy ended up taking the route much too close to the edge of the waterside.

There were puddles there, shallow pools of sea foam, broken from the crests of waves upon the impact.

One second the boy walked on the edge, the other he was gone. A quiet splash.

Itachi jerked towards the spot, stepped forward faster than an average eye could catch, and stopped dead in his tracks just as abruptly. Crimson eyes were wide open, and his breath somewhat hitched. A thought froze him, and as he let it sink in, the red gave way to the black.

_Kisame could see._

Kisame could come back any time now. And find what? The Uchiha Slayer dripping wet with sea water, and a limp child in his hands.

Akatsuki recruits didn't do such things. People who killed their clans didn't save children from drowning.

Itachi straightened up, keeping his eyes on the spot. The bigger part of his mind reminded him of the facts. The smaller one kept counting how much time had passed.

His face showed no emotion, being perfectly empty and indifferent – just as it had been some minutes ago. His hands curled into fists, gripping so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

Itachi was thinking. There must have been some way... without...

The exact moment his eyes found the women's faces, the boy's mother called out his name in an anxious cry. Her dark, startled eyes wildly searched around, falling on Itachi who returned the look with chilling calmness. Realizing he hadn't moved an inch from where he stood before, the child's mother quickly discarded him as a culprit and ran towards the edge of the sea.

„There was a splash before! You heard it?" the other one cried after her, in no less panicky way. She ran after her.

The mother called out his name, each shout gaining in terror. She was hollering for the boy, and Itachi stood and watched, as his heart raced and his inside hurt.

He mustn't do anything. He won't do anything. It will be a practice. An exercise for the missions to come. For everything he would have to do from now on.

People who killed their families... they didn't...

The woman was screaming at the sea. It wasn't shouting and couldn't be described as yelling. It was a long, wailing, hysterical and horrifying scream. The other one cried beside her.

The mother spun around and looked at Itachi. Her face was frantic.

„Help him! I don't know how to swim!"

He didn't react.

„I don't know how to swim! Help him! I don't know where he is! Help him! _Help him!_"

Itachi kept quiet.

„_HELP HIM!" _The woman hollered, staring at him madly.

The other one sobbed.

Seeing he wouldn't budge, the woman again turned to the sea, and began pacing up and down the edge of the waterside, staring at the opaque water, making sudden turns and jerks.

„_I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM! KAMI, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM!_" she yelled, but this time to herself. Her hands helplessly tugged at her hair.

It took maybe a fraction of a second for Itachi to let go, and he cast off, jerking towards the sea line, before he stopped again. This time, the reason was a vision caught by his peripheral sight.

Itachi stopped and stared at a tall figure who suddenly turned out to be standing next to the women. It took the figure half a second to pull a giant bandaged sword off of his back and thrust it into water. The figure wore an Akatsuki cloak.

Itachi looked while Kisame swung the Samehada in the sea water, as if stirring some bizarre, enormous soup, and he kept on looking as the Mist rogue effortlessly drew the giant sword out. Something was hanging on it.

Kisame slowly brought the blade with a limp, dripping child sprawled over it towards the shore. The boy's limbs hung lifelessly.

It looked as if the shark man could have as well picked a floating plastic bag with a stick.

Kisame lowered the blade so that the woman could pick the boy off, which she did, with shaking hands.

She started massaging his chest and crying his name. Kisame didn't stand there to watch. Returning the sword to his back, he began walking towards Itachi with an unreadable expression on his face, turning his head over his shoulder only upon the sound of a gurgling, choking cry of the child. The boy was bawling.

Kisame reached Itachi.

The blue-skinned man jerked his head, and the movement might have indicated direction. The ex Kiri-nin began walking away, leaving Itachi to follow. Somewhere around their seventh step, they heard the sound of running, and they saw the mother wheezing before them, holding a wet and pale child in her arms.

For a moment she seemed unable to utter a word, but in the end she muttered: „Thank you..." Her eyes were locked on Kisame's, and it looked as if she might touch his hand in gratitude, scales and all. He stopped her in time.

„Teach him how to swim", he growled, and the Akatsuki proceeded. She stared after them, anyway, not loosing a small smile.

Itachi walked beside Kisame in an unknown direction, keeping his face as straight and blank as ever, while his thoughts were running for miles. He didn't dare look at him directly.

Coughing to himself with some awkwardness, Kisame suddenly came to a halt, making Itachi stop, too. The inhuman eyes turned towards Itachi.

„Dying such a death is stupid", Kisame began in a let's-get-this-straight kind of voice. „There might be a shinobi out of that boy some day. An opponent worth fighting." Kisame smirked and reached for the hilt of the Samehada. Kisame's smirk involved two rows of pointy teeth.

„There is no point in the death of the weak", he concluded, and added shrewdly, „Wouldn't _you _agree?"

Breaking eye-contact with Itachi's indifferent gaze, Kisame turned away and proceeded to walk.

Itachi followed, with black eyes locked on his patner's back.

You really never know what another man's interior hides.


End file.
